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All Polenlager camps were classified by the Germans as "labour reformatories". They were built near major military work-sites for the steady supply of slave labor. The camps had permanent German staff, augmented by captives and volunteers from other Eastern European countries (known as Hiwis). The Poles were delivered to Polenlagers by trainloads from German temporary transit camps, after they had been evicted from their homes to make way for new settlers (see: Action Saybusch). Some of the Silesians who were imprisoned there, refused to sign the Volksliste (DVL) or claim German nationality.[2][3]

There were over 30 Polenlager camps identified in research – mostly in Silesia (26),[7] but also in other locations across the Third Reich and in the present day Czech Republic.[8] Historians estimate their number to have been even higher. In some camps, such as Polenlager 92 in Kietrz (Katscher), the living accommodations were set up in the factory where prisoners worked; they were given about 1 square metre (11 sq ft) per person to live on, at a redesigned floor of the Schaeffler textile factory.[9] – In 1943, they processed into yarn 3 tons of human hair delivered from Auschwitz in two railroad cars.[10]

At the Polenlager 75 in Racibórz (Ratibor) – with 142 prisoners as of January 14, 1943 according to records – 22,1% were below the age of 14 years.[11] At the Polenlager 10 in Siemianowice Śląskie(pictured),[1] children as young as eight were forced to work at a stone quarry.[12] The extant documentation indicates that plans for further expansion of the Polenlager camp system had also been made. All of them were designated within the general numbering framework of the VolksdeutscheMittelstelle camps. They were not numbered successively.